Nation, nationalism and the Partition of India: two moments from Hindi fiction

Abstract

This paper traces the trajectory of Muslims in India over roughly four decades after Independence through a study of two Hindi novels, Rahi Masoom Reza’s Adha Gaon and Manzoor Ehtesham’s Sookha Bargad. It explores the centrality of Partition to issues of Muslim identity, their commitment to the Indian nation, and how a resurgent Hindu communal discourse particularly from the 1980s onwards “otherizes” a community that not only rejected the idea of Pakistan as the homeland for Muslims, but was also critical to the construction of a secular Indian nation.